<p>I have seen test prep help bring up test scores and I have seen college counselors who have helped families quite a bit.</p>
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<p>This is still factually incorrect. </p>
<p><a href=“http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf[/url]”>http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf</a> </p>
<p>[STANFORD</a> Magazine: March/April 2007 > Features > Mind-set Research](<a href=“Page Not Found”>Page Not Found)</p>
<p>My friend’s son is going to a tudor (read test prep) for SAT testing and has been promised a 100+ point increase. He started the summer after his sophmore year. It is very expensive and has proven results with the very upper class private school students. They wouldn’t pay for it if it didn’t work. Are they “smarter” than the middle or lower class kid that doesn’t get test prep? I just saying…</p>
<p>“I have seen test prep help bring up test scores and I have seen college counselors who have helped families quite a bit.”</p>
<p>Me, too. Just because they were not “needed” in selected cases on this thread does not mean they were/are never helpful. The best test prep programs give you 3 things: (a) a concentration only on the individual student’s weaknesses as analyzed in the practice test; (b) a rigidly timed environment for further, multiple practice; (c) instruction and practice in test-taking strategies.</p>
<p>While (a) and (b) may seem as if ‘any student can do that,’ you would be amazed at how many otherwise capable students benefit from the direction and control of a formal structure in that regard. It’s too easy to fudge the timing, or not be objective about what one’s real weaknesses are (not just ‘the wrong answers’ but the patterns of errors that emerge).</p>
<p>They would pay for it even if it didn’t work: throw money at the problem. ETS has stats that show a modest gain for intensive tutoring, but as to how they compare with self study, or even just taking the test for a second time, well, people will just say that ETS has a vested interest anyway. A very illuminating article is “The Great Sorting” by Malcom Gladwell, which appeared in The New Yorker, or The Atlantic a few years ago, and is worth googling.</p>
<p>From the article:</p>
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<p>LOL. Another mom that hasn’t heard of (or doesn’t buy colleges’ claim of) superscoring.</p>
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<p>…or time away from extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>i am happy that somebody chose to write about this, because lower income students definitely have a greater disadvantage overall continuing their education past high school in comparison to higher income families. This disadvantage does not mean it is bad for middle class and upper class parents to want to spend money, I’m sure the lower class families would do the same if they could, however, it’s a great step to point out this disadvantage.</p>
<p>I mean, many people posting here are posting on behalf of their children…and honestly many <em>not all</em> lower income parents have no clue about what it means to succeed in college let alone join a college messageboard on behalf of their child.</p>
<p>Since this is a site for super-high achievers, consider that most of the kids posting here with sky-high SATI scores also had sky-high SATII’s. There doesn’t exist any test-prep for the SATII’s, so this leads one to believe that people with test-prep on SATI would have been near-perfect without it. The people who are in the 750-800 range on the science SATII’s certainly don’t need any help with the math SATI, which is a total joke.</p>
<p>The value of taking a test-prep course is to hear what is said in the book out loud, I would say. If you’ve got money to burn, then it’s worth it. Plus, it gives you a set schedule to cover the book. </p>
<p>I don’t know how drastic the SATI has changed since I was in school, but I do feel practicing for the verbal section was helpful on the SATI. Learning vocabulary over a long period of time will help your SATI, but it will also improve your writing. I think if you make a concerted effort, you can improve on the reading comprehension part too. But gains made by reading passages and answering questions represent real growth IMO. An intellectual lifestyle helps on the SATI, and there is no clear line between growth that helps for test-prep or just helps in intellectual pursuits. </p>
<p>BTW, another thing, I would say that high school is more helpful as test-prep than Kaplan or Princeton review. Many of the academic stars that are “impure” enough to take a test prep course in high school also took the SAT it in junior high to get into special high schools or various summer programs. And naturally they didn’t have the benefit of 4 years of mathematics and high school english when they took it in junior high; many score near the ceiling anyway.</p>
<p>LOL @ Upenn…totally agree.</p>
<p>I posted this on another thread, but it’s especially relevant here.</p>
<p>is it really that hard to study for you SATs? If you live in a stable, working class family in a small working class town, is it hard to find time and space to study for the SAT? Will you be somewhat ostracized by more practical kids and will you lack proper role models? Maybe, but surely that kid isn’t living in a violent or unstable environment where schoolwork and the like are impossible to complete. I don’t see why we should automatically boost a kid’s SAT score 200 points b/c he grew up in the MidWest. Get a Princeton Review book for 20 bucks and study an hour/day while your parents are at bowling league. (This of course doesn’t apply to people who genuinely grow up in horribly unstable environments. I can’t imagine the son of a crackhead living in the projects can find too much time to study for the SAT).</p>
<p>And this brings me to a related point. I think standardized test scores should be considered even more than they are now. My reson: It would actually help disadvantaged people. The focus on EC’s actually harms high scoring, lower class individuals.</p>
<p>Standardized test scores and grades are the EASIEST and, IMO, the most important aspect of the application. Under “holistic” admissions process, the rich kids who can spend their summers in Africa or researching w/ their parents’ friends or having their housewife mother chauffeur them to every extracurricular activity has a HUGE advantage over the lower class kid. But the lower class kid should have plenty of time and innate intelligence to study for the SAT and to outperform the rich kid on that OBJECTIVE measure of ability. (And let’s be real here, the test prep industry perpetrates the biggest fraud on suburban, helicopter parents. Buy two books for 15 bucks each other, use free materials provided by every HS in the country, and search online for the literally millions of practice tests/questions.)</p>
<p>So if elite schools focused more on numbers, the prep schooler whose parents have paid for 10 “life-changing experiences” and donated tons of money to their kid’s school (this, perhaps, giving their children a boost in grades) have all the advantage.</p>
<p>^ I agree completely with dontno’s post.</p>
<p>The tests are the great equalizer, not the great injustice to the poor that so many seem so intent on claiming. Those trying to get rid of the tests are often affluent people who have kids that just don’t test very well and they are the most vocal, most hostile of all to the tests. </p>
<p>I think post #91 also makes a very important point about the huge advantage of wealth in extracurriculars. Music lessons beginning in preschool. Sports camps and coaching and equipment. Connections to laboratory research through mom and/or dad’s professional connections. And then the big exotic travel gigs to “help” the disadvantaged. </p>
<p>The truly non-level playing field is in the extracurriculars.</p>
<p>And one more issue regarding test prep. I really get the feeling from insights such as idad on here that many of the wealthy parents paying for their kids to go to crazy high schools that are essentially factories for Ivy admissions and the private college consultants and private high-priced SAT tutoring – all that stuff begins to sound to me as if these parents are compensating for a great big void within their families. They sound like very busy, very successful people who are hoping they can pay for someone else to shepherd their kids through all the complexities of adolescence and college admissions. It sounds like many get that brass ring and manage to get their kids into top schools but they sound like the truly impoverished among us, imo.</p>
<p>I think if Mr. Fitzsimmons and his colleagues at other “highly selective” schools really want to introduce increased fairness to admissions they will think about moving away from what sounds like very close relationships with these schools. I just can’t get over the idea of a high school counselor flying out to meet with admissions counselors at a selective college to pitch their applicants. Now that’s what I call unfair advantage to the wealthy - not the SAT.</p>
<p>Collegealum314-- There is plenty of test prep available for SAT2s. Tons of books, from all the same publishers of the SAT I guides, tutors, etc.</p>
<p>Upenn2013 point to point conclusion is flawed. Yes, you can define “intelligence” as a combination of genes and enviroment, but this doesn’t mean that a college must or should select based on that definition or that using a different definition would be a “lowering of standards”. If a college would prefer to admit some portion of students based on just the genetic component with the idea that the college environment will provide a boost, they may select based on different standards than SAT scores.</p>
<p>Another key point that you seem to misunderstand is the difference between “poverty” and “economic inequality”. Although all capitalist societies will have economic inequality to varying degrees, there are currently a number of societies that do not have poverty. For examples of this, you may want to explore northern Europe (Norway, etc). Individuals in poverty are profoundly disadvantaged, people of adequate means with access to education, healthcare and services may not have all the consumer goods of the rich in their societies, but they are not denied basic access.</p>
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<p>I’ve been enjoying your posts on this topic. :D</p>
<p>Here’s how mine pulled his 800s: he read War & Peace in 7th grade. It was an old Modern Library edition on a bookshelf in the house. Who knows what it cost? No flash cards, no Sparks notes, no prep class.</p>
<p>BTW, my favorite anti-SAT article of all time was printed on the op-ed page of the NYT, probably back in the early 70s. The author was fulminating about the injustice of it all: he plucked a word from the vocabulary section as evidence that the test favored students who had read 19th century novels! The horror! My point of view is that the test SHOULD favor students who have read 19th century novels. And 20th century novels. And plays. And poetry. And newspapers. And non-fiction. You name it. I doubt that there is an inner-city or rural school or neighborhood in this nation that does not have access to a public library that contains all of the above for free. Prior generations of dirt-poor immigrants–many of our parents and grandparents–managed to find them. Surely the middle class has the option of turning off the tv and NOT buying an X-Box.</p>
<p>I think self study is great, but to add an experienced skilled tutor to go over your weak point is definitely useful in bringing up those scores. I think that is more valuable than those canned courses.</p>
<p>dontno>> “the rich kids who can spend their summers in Africa or researching w/ their parents’ friends or having their housewife mother chauffeur them to every extracurricular activity has a HUGE advantage over the lower class kid.”</p>
<p>Ironically, in my city of nearly 1 million people, the suburban kids who seek community service opportunities often traveled to the inner city core to find them. Things like homeless shelters, food banks, social outreach groups, etc. tend to be located near the core. Which means for the urban poor they are closer to and are exposed to more community service opportunities in their own back yard – if they have the motivation and desire to seek them.</p>
<p>I agree with collegealum’s last paragraph of post 89, but for some of us, this proves the opposite point.
Not all high schools teach adequate prep for SAT, by virtue of the content of their courses. Geometry was not taught at my D’s otherwise wonderful h.s. Thus, she scored 75% on the geometric reasoning portion of the SAT, vs. 95% on the algebraic reasoning. She should have done worse, actually, except that she’s a fab test-taker. Again, SAT prep is often most beneficial for those with specific course weaknesses and for those who do not have a lot of practice taking standardized tests. The latter fact can also sometimes be linked to the “quality of the high school.” In my role as a consultant in education, I see increasingly more students now where the mid-level high schools & middle schools are neither offering standardized tests often (such as even PSAT), never instruct on test-taking of any kind (including classroom testing), and certainly are not ‘standardized’ when it comes to content of teaching critical reading, writing, and math skills.</p>
<p>These are only some of the reasons that it has never been true that for all students, the SAT I is “the great leveler” it’s been falsely touted to be.</p>
<p>“Collegealum314-- There is plenty of test prep available for SAT2s. Tons of books, from all the same publishers of the SAT I guides, tutors, etc.”</p>
<p>There are no specific classes for SAT2. I’ve never known a high scorer (750-800) on the SATII to have any sort of tutor. If someone taken an AP class in a subject and can’t score in this range, then it is their own fault because the SATII is a remedial test. </p>
<p>By your logic, you shouldn’t consider grades either because some kid could have gotten a tutor for their classes. There is really nothing different about the SATII that’s not in an AP class (at least math and science, which are the ones I took.) Ultimately, kids who need tutors to get A’s in math and science classes are a lost cause; what I mean is its highly unlikely someone will be able to test-prep them to the near-perfect SATII ranges necessary for ivies/MIT/Caltech. </p>
<p>Also, even though there are books available, the stuff in them is so remedial compared to AP that if you still haven’t mastered the material then you are not going to be getting a near-perfect score.</p>
<p>Besides, as people said, many of these books are in the library so if you really think they are a godsend, they are available. </p>
<p>Bottom line, anyone really smart and motivated will gladly compete against the wealthy on these exams. </p>
<p>(Caveat: I did buy a couple of these books and spent one evening doing the tests mainly to be thorough. The one I didn’t have a book for I got an 800.)</p>
<p>So because wealthier kids have better reasoning skill and are more well-read and participate more in their community, we should lower the college standard for poorer students who are not as involved and whose reasoning skills are below par.</p>
<p>Therefore Harvard should fill its class with a bunch of poor miniorities who are not as good at basic math (SAT math) and who lack the proper facilities to solve complicated word problems.</p>
<p>Looking at different criteria does not translate “lowering of standards”-- The evidence that affluence buys better test taking is overwhelming. If one is interested in assessing the core talent potential before the application of money, the test results must be looked at in the context of the relative wealth of the test takers. Period. It really isn’t all about the terrible injustice being done to white, upper middle class children.</p>